New Bridget Jones novel to Cape

Benedicte Page | The Bookseller – November 9, 2012

Jonathan Cape has acquired a new Bridget Jones novel by Helen Fielding. 

The novel, for which no title has yet been released, is to be set in contemporary London and will explore “a different phase in Bridget’s life”. The book will be out in autumn 2013.

Vintage m.d. Richard Cable bought UK and Commonwealth rights on sole submission from Gillon Aitken of Aitken Alexander Associates.

Dan Franklin, publisher of Jonathan Cape, said: “Great comic writers are as rare as hen’s teeth. Helen is one of a very select band who have created a character, Bridget, of whom the very thought makes you smile. Like millions of others I can’t wait to see what’s happened to her.’

Fielding said she was thrilled to be published by Cape but wanted “to register my huge appreciation of Bridget’s original publisher, Picador, and the success they made of the two early Bridget Jones novels”. She said: “The new novel is set in present-day London, with an entirely new scenario for Bridget. If people laugh as much reading it as I am while writing it then we’ll all be very happy.”

Bridget Jones Diary was published in 1997, with its sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, following in 1999. The two novels were published in 40 countries with worldwide sales given at over 15 million copies.